Version: (using KDE 4.0.83) Installed from: SuSE RPMs In 4.0.85, folderview and/or plasma introduced a slight regression (using OpenSuSE 11 factory repo). The text beneath the icons kinda flickers. It can start with no text at all, and if you let the mouse pointer hover above the text and/or icon the text is revealed. 4.0.84 did not exhibit this behavior (although this, as well as the flickering taskbar when using OpenOffice, may be related to the nvidia driver I'm using. It is not present with compositing turned off at any rate but I have no other graphics card to try it with).
this is a graphics driver issue.
Are you sure? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the main problem but why didn't 4.0.84 behave in that manner then and the driver is the same. It sounds to me like there is something more to it than just a driver issue.
Okay, it wasn't a driver issue after all. Plasma and/or the folderview plasmoid just wasn't too happy about the font I had chosen for Appearance/Desktop. It didn't like Adobe Helvetica Oblique (or Adobe Times Italics) at all for some bizarre reason, but once I changed to another font the problem went away (with or without oblique/italics). I'm not sure where I got the fonts from or whether the font-files are somewhat damaged, but the fonts work as they should, as far as I can tell anyway, in other situations and apps.
font rendering / font files isn't a plasma issue.